The Foreign Exchange Market — better known as Forex — is a world wide market for buying and selling currencies.

It handles a huge volume of transactions 24 hours a day, 5 days a week. Daily exchanges are worth approximately $1.5 trillion (US dollars). In comparison, the United States Treasury Bond market averages $300 billion a day and American stock markets exchange about $100 billion a day.

The Foreign Exchange Market was established in 1971 with the abolishment of fixed currency exchanges. Currencies became valued at 'floating' rates determined by supply and demand. The Forex grew steadily throughout the 1970's, but with the technological advances of the 80's Forex grew from trading levels of $70 billion a day to the current level of $1.5 trillion.

The Forex is made up of about 5000 trading institutions such as international banks, central government banks (such as the US Federal Reserve), and commercial companies and brokers for all types of foreign currency exchange.

Trading in the Forex market isn't an easy process. You'll have to learn a lot about fundamental and technical analysis and about various nuances of trading and Forex market in particular. The automated Forex software won't help you at this. It's a rather bad way to learn, especially if you are new to Forex. The expert advisor, even if profitable, should be configured adequately and optimized according to the new market conditions often. A Forex newbie simply isn't capable of doing it without enough experience.

Setting correct input parameters depending on the currency pair, timeframe and conditions you are trading on is very important. A Forex expert advisor (robot) should be able to function in 100% accordance with the market. Adding it to different pairs will also require a tuning of the parameters but will lead to more gains.

For a new trader it always looks attracting to set up the Forex robot to trade on all currency pairs present in the platform, but the more pairs it will trade the more optimization and fine-tuning it will require. And the Forex newbies aren't usually capable of following so many currency pairs at a time. Experts recommend focusing on one or a maximum of two currency pairs at a time to get more understanding of how the Forex trading works.

In my continuing quest to provide visitors of my site with a large amount of options to chose from when considering working from home I have done some research on Forex trading. I first learned of Forex trading while pursuing my MBA program. For those of you who have never heard of this, Forex trading is the exchange of foreign currency.

I know I would have never even know this was an option for making money had I not found out in class. Most of the really big corporations have departments of people that do this for a living because it can be very lucrative if done correctly. The best news I have learned about this process of exchanging currencies is that many of the websites that you can sign up with to do this offer free trial accounts to help you learn before you invest your money into trying it. You won't make any money in the trial accounts if you do well, it is just pretend money essentially but with the real market conditions. If you do well in the trial account you will know if this is something you want to try on your own.

Historically, the FX market was available most to major banks, multinational corporations and other participants who traded in large transaction sizes and volumes. Small-scale traders including individuals like you and I, had little access to this market for such a long time. Now with the advent of the Internet and technology, FX trading is becoming an increasingly popular investment alternative for the general public.

There are many different advantages to trading forex instead of futures or stocks, such as:

1. Lower Margin

Just like futures and stock speculation, a forex trader has the ability to control a large amount of the currency basically by putting up a small amount of margin. However, the margin requirements that are needed for trading futures are usually around 5% of the full value of the holding, or 50% of the total value of the stocks, the margin requirements for forex is about 1%. For example, margin required to trade foreign exchange is $1000 for every $100,000. What this means is that trading forex, a currency trader's money can play with 5-times as much value of product as a futures trader's, or 50 times more than a stock trader's. When you are trading on margin, this can be a very profitable way to create an investment strategy, but it's important that you take the time to understand the risks that are involved as well. You should make sure that you fully understand how your margin account is going to work. You will want to be sure that you read the margin agreement between you and your clearing firm. You will also want to talk to your account representative if you have any questions.

My purpose for writing this article is to demonstrate to you the advantages of trading on the Forex market. However, there is one myth that I want to dispel before I go further. The myth is that there is a difference between trading and investing. To dispel that myth I quote from Al Thomas, President of Williamsburg Investment Company, who wrote "If It Doesn't Go Up, Don't Buy It". He said "Everyone who invests is a trader, only the time period is different." It is a lesson that I took seriously after taking a beating in the stock market in 2000.

So now, let's compare features of currency trading to those of stock and commodity trading.

There are many money-making opportunities out there and we've been involved with quite a few, namely property marketing, web development, residential construction security, multi-level marketing businesses etc.

We've come to a few conclusions with the help of some well-known properity coaches.

Often people with the income they desire don't have the time to enjoy it. Those that have time don't often have money. You don't have to sacrifice your life-style to earn an above-average income. If you focus on the for a few months you can make that dream a reality and create time and money to do what you REALLY want.

There are many many advantages over the various other ways of investing. First of all it is a 24 hr market, except for weekends of course. You have the US market then the european and then the Asian. One of the great times to trade is during the over lapping periods. The USA and european overlap between 5am & 9am eastern and the Euro & Asian between 11pm & 1am eastern. Usually the busiest time and best to trade.

The is also the risk factor for the accounts. With futures and options you can get margin calls that can wipe you out. If you get caught in a bad trade not only do you lose the money in the account but you may have to come up with alot more from your pocket. It can be very risking. But not in Forex. Worst case senerio you could lose whats in you account. But you would have to do something really stupid. Like making a big trade on a Fundamental day and leave it alone. If market takes a bad move and you weren't there. OOOPS. But That wouldn't happen with a smarth trader.

Buying and selling of different currencies of the world is known as forex trading. Forex or foreign exchange market is the largest trading market in the world. Forex trading market deals with more than US$2 trillion everyday. It has become favorite option for currency traders. Foreign exchange market is extremely different from stock exchange market. Currency trading is always done in pairs like USD/EUR or USD/GBP etc. Forex trading market works 24 hours a day.

Several investors and traders are joining forex trading every day. First time investors should keep in mind that forex trading works on certain principles. They should remember that it is an investment not an income. Currency can fluctuate at any time so right time investment is the best investment in forex trading. You should have another source of income while dealing in forex trading. If you are a first time investor don't believe in demo trading because it can be dangerous in long run. After getting all information about broker's system you can start forex trading with small amounts. You should always invest that amount for which you can bear profit or loss.

With the amazing growth of the forex market, you are going to see an astounding amount of traders lose all their money. Unfortunately, they haven't followed the simple steps I have laid out for you. Go through these steps and give yourself the greatest opportunity to achieve your goals.

1. Have Faith In Yourself

To reach the level of elite forex trader, you must trust in yourself and your forex trading education. You must be willing to make all your trading decisions, instead of relying on someone else's thoughts or ability (or lack of). Of course, you will prepare yourself fully before every risking any money.

There are very few forex trading signals providers that are genuinely consistently profitable month after month. There are many that claim to be and have impressive looking performance records but very often it transpires that they massage their numbers, and use hypothetical figures in their calculations, rather than trade their signals themselves.

I've come across many different forex signals providers in my time. It's hard not to as the internet's full of them. Nearly all of them have turned out to be a waste of time. I thought I'd found a great site a while back in the shape of Forex Live Pro, but after having several highly profitable months, even they ended up going on a losing streak and have since closed down.

That's why there's only one company that I'm more than happy to recommend and that's Zulu Trade.

The Forex market can be intimidating and confusing if you are a beginner. Experts and gurus have spent years acquiring experience and knowledge
by making expensive mistakes. If you are venturing into forex for the first time, it's almost a guarantee that you will lose money. You may lack the
knowledge and skills to make profitable trades.
To overcome the challenges ahead, have two options. The first option is to learn everything on your own. However, as mentioned earlier, be prepared
to lose money to pick up the lessons. Also, the learning curve is rather steep. The complex and sophisticated analysis methods can put the most
intelligent people off. Not everyone wants to get involved in research and analysis. For sure, it's more fun to be trading and making money in real time.